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What Has the ‘PUBG’ Community Learned from Shroud’s Ban?

Apparently that, depending on who you are, the rules are pretty subjective.
July 25, 2018
11 mins read

Earlier this month, Shroud, the most prominent streamer on “PUBG”, played alongside an unabashed cheater. Teaming in a solo “PUBG” match is already a bannable offense as is, but together, Shroud and the cheater also flew around in a hacked car and even spotted other players using a wall hack.

You can view the video following the game that resulted in Shroud’s ban here.

The video begins with the cheater honking the horn of a VW bus as he flies it through the house that Shroud is taking cover in. Shroud at first seems worried that the pilot of this hacked flying bus will kill him, but he then directs the cheating player where to land inside the house, showing that the two players have teamed up.

The next few minutes of the video seem a bit weird (as if the flying bus wasn’t enough) if you are not familiar with what typically happens in Shroud’s “PUBG” streams.

As the most famous “PUBG” streamer on Twitch, Shroud often attracts many players who simply want to be featured in the gameplay. This usually results in stream sniping, watching a player’s live stream while playing in the same game in order to get a better sense of their location within the game. Stream sniping is most often used to gain the upper hand against the streamer, but a lot of players who stream snipe Shroud’s “PUBG” streams want to team up with him.

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As perhaps the most famous “PUBG” streamer on Twitch, Shroud called a lot of attention to his actions when he knowingly cheated. (Image via Cloudcast)

That is why you will see another random player acknowledging Shroud in the video and ask if he wants any loot. The random player essentially turns into Shroud’s little helper.

Teaming in solo games, as I’ve said, is supposedly a bannable offense. However, so many players stream snipe Shroud and give him free loot and kills that it must be hard for the folks at “PUBG” to keep track of all the activity, even when there are videos published online.

So that’s just a regular day at the office for Shroud, most likely nothing that he expects to get banned for in itself. But doing this same thing with a hacker who programs cars to fly around in the game? That’s a different story.

If you continue to watch the video, you’ll notice that the hacker offers to fly his magical automobile across the map to bring Shroud loot from an airdrop, and Shroud accepts of course. So the hacker vertically takes off and flies around the map to collect loot. It’s actually pretty hilarious, and you have to admit while watching that it also looks like a lot of fun.

After illegally acquiring everything he wants from his blatantly cheating teammate, Shroud hops into the flying car along with the hacker, and they take advantage of the funny hack to safely and quickly transport themselves into the play zone away from the incoming storm.

This is where it gets even more out of hand.

Shroud wants to leave the car when they enter the play zone, but the hacker assures him that he can land in an area that actually has players that he can kill. Using yet another hack that enables him to see through walls, the hacker puts Shroud right next to a house containing an enemy player, and Shroud promptly breaches the house and kills him.

All the while, Shroud laughs to himself, “I’m getting banned…I’m sorry this is too funny. I don’t care what anyone says. People are probably gonna talk shit about me for this.”

At the end of the game, when Shroud finally gets killed in a strange accident, he laughs some more, appearing to not give a care in the world about the imminent ban awaiting him. However, he begins to speak more seriously about what just happened, “It just goes to show how PUBG … don’t give a shit because that [hacker] should have been banned immediately.”

He then explains how he had already had two previous encounters with the hacker, once when he hit Shroud with the flying car, and another when Shroud shot the hacker inside the car.

“The third time, I say I’m gonna have some fun with him, see how long this lasts. We’re riding around together, he’s still not banned,” he says at the end of the video.

Shroud makes a good point. Why was this hacker able to use his abilities multiple times in one of the most popular live streams of an equally popular online game without ever getting banned? It’s a question that raises another question as to whether or not the “PUBG” moderators are on top of controlling this kind of behavior, and judging from this video, it doesn’t seem that way.

In their rules of conduct, “PUBG” explicitly states, “Strong measures will be taken against the users who use / develop / advertise / trade / distribute unauthorized programs that are not approved by PUBG.” It would seem that, according to the language of this rule, the moderators should have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to utilizing hacked game mechanics. The fact that the hacker wasn’t banned even while playing with Shroud during a live stream shows that the folks at “PUBG” don’t take their own rules serious enough to enforce them correctly.

This is particularly striking given the strict language of the rule, which also states, “We may ask the judicial authorities to investigation such cases in accordance with the law.” And yes, you read that correctly. That grammar error comes from their very own rules of conduct. I suppose if “PUBG” wants to enforce their rules, they should be able to write them correctly.

So, if they didn’t ban the hacker for creating, using, and even saying in the video that he sells these hacks, then “PUBG” must have at least banned Shroud for playing with the guy. He does make a lot of money through this game after all since millions of gamers watch his streams.

In another video uploaded by Oddshot Compilations, Shroud explains that he was sent a message from “PUBG” saying that he was, in fact, banned for a full month after his joy ride with the hacker.

“To be honest, I saw it coming. I was trying to have a good time. Obviously I knew what I was doing, which wasn’t a great idea. I’m sorry to those peeps who are really upset with me for flying around with the cheater.”

Shroud then explains that even though he is banned from using his main account on “PUBG,” he can still create a new account and start from scratch if he really wanted to.

But then, when a viewer asked for proof of his ban, Shroud attempted to log in to his main account and, to his surprise, was actually successful. Although he didn’t want to push his luck by entering a game lobby, he still bought the remaining levels that he wanted from the store without any issue.

So it doesn’t even look like Shroud is banned at all despite all that’s happened. If that’s the case, then “PUBG” must either be really bad at moderating cheaters, or Shroud is right: they might just not care, but they should.

Hacking online games might be fun and harmless, but it can often give players an unfair advantage and ruin the experience of others, which is why it is generally illegal across all games and platforms. Not only that, but if you’re going to write a strongly worded rule against such conduct that also includes the possibility of legal investigation and punishment, you should probably be ready to implement that. Otherwise, no one will take the rule seriously.

All of this creates a lot speculation as to whether or not “PUBG” will ever justly punish players for cheating, especially top money-making streamers such as Shroud.

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